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It’s a funny thing this business of going from middle-of-the-road playoff team to actual contender.

The bar keeps moving up with each and every winning season.

Even a couple of years ago a 12-6 start to the season would be hailed as basketball nirvana, each win celebrated a little louder.

But the Raptors are well past that stage.

The wins are expected now, and not just wins but good, complete wins which signal better things to come.

The same measuring of success applies to the individuals on the team. A year ago this time, Cory Joseph was still finding his fit within his new NBA home, returning to his native land after four successful seasons with perennial contenders San Antonio.

With Dwane Casey calling for a better defensive effort, he went to Joseph, a lock-down member of the second unit who sees minutes with the first unit late in games.

Joseph’s response to his coach’s demands was both immediate and effective.

Over the past four games, the start of which coincided with a man-to-man meeting between coach and player, Joseph is a combined plus-39.

In the four games prior, he was a combined minus-19.

Joseph doesn’t have a lot of time for individual stats. He’s a team player through and through, but the plus-minus is the one stat he will check after each game.

“I feel like I’m trying to be more energetic out there and trying to have a bigger impact,” he said. “I think that shows with the plus-minus.”

Coach Casey doesn’t need the plus-minus stats to make his assessment. He’s seeing it in real time and he’s liking it quite a bit.

“He’s playing with more juice,’” Casey said. “He’s getting into the basketball, is the most important thing. He’s gotta be our defensive stopper with the second unit, or if he’s gonna play there (late in the game) with Kyle and DeMar, that’s his role is coming in and he’s doing that, he’s getting into the basketball, creating turnovers, pressuring the ball. That’s who he is.

“And I think that in turn gives him juice on the offensive end, gives him confidence, plays a little bit freer and tougher on the offensive end,” Casey said. “But it starts with his presence on the defensive end.”

Offensively, two of his best offensive performances have come in those past four games lending credence to the carry-over effect his lock-down defence is having offensively.

Joseph had 17 against Houston a week ago Wednesday and 16 against Memphis on Wednesday in Toronto. In between, he had eight- and nine-point nights in wins over Milwaukee and Philadelphia, all part of his most productive four-game segment of the year.

What impressed Casey, though, was his defence.

“I thought he got back to who he was last year with his defensive presentations on the ball, in pick-and-roll situations, he was into it, he got a deflection, got a turnover over late in the game and that’s who Cory’s got to be,” Casey said.

Joseph, and for that matter DeMarre Carroll too — another huge factor in the Raptors’ defensive prowess — both see the team making strides these past few days in that area. With Casey putting the full-court press on defensive improvement, it’s almost impossible that things not get a little better.

But as Carroll pointed out, it’s all part of learning how to be as effective defensively as they were a year ago, but doing so with changes to the personnel.

“We’ve got to be more scrappy,” Carroll said. “We don’t have the rim protection we had last year. We have to be more scrappy. We have to get to the 50-50 balls. We have a lot of long, athletic guys who can play defence. It’s all about the will and want-to. I feel like we’ve just got to learn how to do it day in and day out.”

With Joseph and Carroll leading the way, the team is well on it’s way.

GETTING BACK TO BACK-TO-BACKS

DeMarre Carroll has his legs under him again and is consistently draining those open threes he was missing earlier in the year.

But there’s still the question of workload. In particular, at what point does the team start permitting him to play on back-to-back nights like the situation this weekend with a game Friday against the Lakers and Saturday versus Atlanta?

The answer is not yet, but it’s coming.

Head coach Dwane Casey said the hope is that by the turn of the calendar to 2017, when to rest Carroll will no longer be an issue.

Carroll likely won’t play both Friday and Saturday but he won’t find out which game he is sitting until Friday night.

“I’ll show up tomorrow and coach is going to be like, ‘You’re going to play or you’re not.’ I don’t put in requests,” Carroll said. “We play Atlanta. We play the Lakers. They’re both big-time games. They’re both good teams. They’re both playing very well. It doesn’t matter to me. I just want to get back out there and keep playing, because I’m slowly finding my rhythm. I just want to get back out there and keep playing and keep my rhythm.”